Embarrassing first tweets of our time

Whenever someone follows me on Twitter (@timdanton since you ask) I always take a look at their profile and their recent tweets to see if they’d be interesting to follow themselves. (98% of the time I decide against, especially if you’re family.)

What struck me this morning when I took a gander at someone’s Twitter feed, who’d only tweeted around 15 times, is that first tweet. The “hello world” kind of tweet of someone who doesn’t quite know what to say.

Which inspired me to take a look at the first tweets of some of the world’s most famous “tweeters”…

Stephen Fry (@stephenfry, joined July 2008)

Hello Twitterers. I’m About to fly to Africa for a new project and will be tweeting whilst I’m filming

Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer, joined March 2007)

Obsessing over twitter [although I prefer his third tweet, “tweet tweet!”]

Justin Bieber (@justinbieber, joined May 2009)

Check out my single “ONE TIME” on my myspace and spread the word for me. Thanks www.myspace.com/justinbieber

Ashton Kutcher (@AshtonKutcher, joined August 2009)

PUNK’D the MOVIE believe it! doesn’t sound like it makes sense but just wait.

Dave Gorman (@DaveGorman, joined January 2009)

not understanding what I’m supposed to do here…

Richard Bacon (@richardpbacon, joined January 2009)

watching telly

Ben Goldacre (@bengoldacre, joined June 2007)

procrastinating

Charlie Brooker (@charltonbrooker, joined January 2009)

I have been bullied into joining Twitter. Let’s see how long this lasts. I reckon 8 days

Bill Bailey (@BillBailey, joined February 2009)

just contemplating a Quorn-based dish

Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox, joined July 2009)

Finally decided to tweet. Gia’s fault. At heathrow on way to Delhi to film eclipse on Wednesday next week. Its raining apparently

Jonathan Ross (@wossy, joined November 2008)

Hello me [okay, that was his second tweet really – his first was a far more mundane, “Getting to know twitter”]

Moira Stuart (@moira_stuart, joined October 2009)

Now Moira deserves special mention for her first three tweets… which are her only three tweets.

“moira_stuart… is new to Twitter and is confused” was followed by…

“Fiona Bruce” and then

“is new to Twitter”.

Now we don’t know for sure if that account is real, but if it isn’t then whoever set it up deserves a lifetime achievement award for services to entertainment.

My own first tweet, just for the record, was a far more mundane: “Proofing, proofing, proofing. Press week starts tomorrow. Anybody fancy reading eight pages about laser printers?”

To find your own, head to My Tweet 16. Be warned that it doesn’t work perfectly, and that oddly it believes some people joined Twitter in 1969. Which seems unlikely.

And if you can find any other particularly embarrassing ones, feel free to include them below…

UPDATE I’ve just been reminded by our deputy editor Barry Collins (@bazzacollins) that I wrote a feature about tech celebs last year, so it would probably be a good idea to link to it. He’s very clever that way.